Tim Drake

Did You Know?

• An alternate timeline version of Tim Drake became Batman following Terry McGinnis' death in The New 52: Futures End and founded a bar named the Wounded Duck Bar.
• An alternate universe version of Tim Drake in DC Comics Bombshells was a former prisoner of Katherine-Webb Kane's orphanage, forced to build robots for the Axis powers.
• In DCeased, an alternate universe version of Tim Drake was infected by the Anti-Life Equation and subsequently killed by Batman.

Publication history

Tim Drake was introduced as the next Robin after DC ended Jason Todd's run in the storyline A Death in the Family. His name was taken from Tim Burton, the director of the 1989 Batman movie. Tim first showed up in 1989's Batman: Year Three, written by Marv Wolfman with art by Pat Broderick. His backstory came in Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying, a crossover between Batman and New Titans, written by Wolfman and drawn by George Pérez and Jim Aparo.

In that story, he approached Dick Grayson and impressed him enough that Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth backed Tim's bid to become Batman's new sidekick. Wanting to avoid the same issues he had with Jason Todd, Batman put Tim through a tough training period that his predecessors never had. For his first year of regular appearances, Tim stayed a non-superhero supporting character, mostly working in the Batcave. Wolfman said Tim was meant to be different from Grayson and Todd by being highly intelligent, having a strong moral compass, and having his own family outside of Batman.

Storylines by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, along with the 1989 Batman movie, boosted sales for both Batman and Detective Comics. Grant noted that when the film came out, sales jumped from around 75,000 to about 675,000. The 1989-90 period was called the Year of the Bat, and Batman #442, which ended A Lonely Place of Dying, took the third spot in preorders. Preorders for issues featuring a revived Joker and Penguin competed with Grant Morrison and Klaus Janson's Gothic storyline.

By the end of 1990, vendors had under-ordered, so DC pushed Batman #457 and the first part of the Robin mini-series into second and third printings.

Fictional character biography

Tim Drake is the son of Jack Drake and Janet Drake, from the same social class as Bruce Wayne. As a young child, he visited the circus with his parents and met Dick Grayson briefly before the Flying Graysons' parents were murdered, which Tim witnessed. Growing up, his parents were frequently absent on archaeological digs, leaving him in boarding school. By age nine, Tim deduced the identities of Batman and Robin as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson after seeing a gymnastic maneuver by Robin that he had previously seen Grayson perform.

He trained himself in martial arts, acrobatics, detective skills, and scholastics for self-fulfillment, with no intention of joining Batman. At thirteen, seeing Batman grow reckless after Jason Todd's murder, Tim approached Dick Grayson to become Robin again, but Dick refused. Tim's actions in an encounter with Two-Face prompted Dick and Alfred to see him as a potential third Robin. Batman agreed to mentor Tim but initially refused field involvement.

After Tim's mother died, his father was paralyzed, and Tim rescued Batman from the Scarecrow, Batman enlisted him as the third Robin at age fourteen. Tim was given a modern redesign of the Robin costume and trained abroad with numerous experts. When Bruce Wayne retired after Knightfall, Robin went solo to defend Gotham City. He later co-starred with other teenaged superheroes in Young Justice and Teen Titans.

Costumes

Tim Drake's original Robin costume had a red torso, yellow stitching and belt, black boots, green short sleeves, gloves, and pants, with a cape of Kevlar and Nomex that was black outside and yellow inside. It provided increased protection with an armored tunic and gorget, long boots, an emergency 'R' shuriken on his chest, and a collapsible bo staff as his primary weapon. This costume had a red torso, long sleeves, and pants, with a black-outside, yellow-inside cape, yellow stitching, a black domino mask, gloves, and boots, resembling Bob Kane's unused Batman design.

As Red Robin, Tim wore a long-sleeved red tunic with black boots, tights, gloves, cape, and cowl, plus a black-and-gold utility belt. After confronting Ra's al Ghul in Red Robin #12, the costume gained spiked gauntlets, a cropped tunic, and a new utility belt. In the New 52, Tim's Red Robin outfit was a single-piece red and black costume with assorted belts, a black domino mask, and a chest harness attached to rocket-powered wings designed by Virgil Hawkins that allowed flight.

In other media

Tim Drake as Robin appears in the DC Animated Universe, first in The New Batman Adventures voiced by Mathew Valencia, with a rebellious personality as a former street thief whose father Steven Drake was killed by Two-Face. He also appears in Superman: The Animated Series, Static Shock, and makes cameos in Justice League. In Young Justice, voiced by Cameron Bowen, Tim is a member of the Team with a costume based on his 'One Year Later' appearance, later joining Batman Inc. and the Outsiders.

He appears in the Teen Titans Go! episode 'The Best Robin' voiced by Scott Menville. In Titans, portrayed by Jay Lycurgo, Tim is a delivery boy who idolizes Batman, deduces Nightwing's identity, and after Jason Todd's death approaches Nightwing to become the new Robin. He assists the Titans, is killed by Jonathan Crane, escapes the afterlife, and later becomes Robin, entering a relationship with Bernard Fitzmartin. Tim makes a non-speaking cameo in the Harley Quinn episode 'Batman Begins Forever'.